FollowMe® is a roaming, secure printing and accounting solution offering many benefits to companies of all sizes that may require its printer roaming capabilities and ensure printing security. It also provides accounting for all printers' and copiers' usage so that
automatic reports can be generated for users, cost centers, cost codes, and printers.
Secure printing and printer access control have been a requirement to many companies for a number of years. FollowMe® has been developed as a fast and easy to install solution that is easily managed and upgraded.
FollowMe® supports all industry standard printers in the world. FollowMe® devices are also available for many printers that have internal interface slots such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Kyocera
and Mutoh.
FollowMe® Embedded, a solution that does not require any external hardware to the MFP when used with PIN authentication.
FollowMe® Embedded is available for select MFP and DigitalSender devices from HP and Ricoh.
FollowMe is designed to enhance, track and secure document output without requiring
major changes to the existing network infrastructure or printer hardware. That means organizations can improve the cost-effectiveness of document output while leveraging existing
investments in technology.
Benefits of FollowMe®
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Works with any copying or printing device (e.g. copier/printer or MFP) as well as Digital Senders
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Controlled Copying and Printing
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Restrict access using PIN or your existing proximity, magnetic, smart cards or biometric identification
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Control copying and printing to curb wastage of paper and consumables
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Restrict copier/printer/MFP usage based on time, paper size or colour criteria
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Convenient Printing
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Collect from any location
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Printer "roaming" across the LAN, WAN or Internet pulls print on authentication.
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If a printer is down, go to a working printer, authenticate and collect your output.
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Monitor and log copier/printer/MFP usage
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Full accounting andprint audit on a per user, cost centre and printer basis
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Client codes accounting on a per client basis
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Personal Printing
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Turning network printers/MFP's into personal printers
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Account for LPT/COM/USB printing
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Solution requiring minimal set up and ongoing maintenance
FollowMe Secure and Roaming Printing
FollowMe stores print jobs on the FollowMe Q-Server and releases them only when the user provides this identification at the printer. FollowMe offers flexibility to roam between printers, to ensure printing is not duplicated. If a printer is currently offline simply walk to the next available printer without having to go back to your workstation and re-print. Saving time and money in all environments where time is money.
Seamless Integration
FollowMe works in Windows™, LINUX™, Apple™, Unix™ and AS400™ based environments integrating seamlessly with your existing ID system (proximity, magnetic, smart cards or biometric identification such as fingerprint).
Supporting printing protocols such as Line Printer Remote (LPR) and printing from Windows Shared Printers FollowMe leaves the door open for integration with almost all operating systems in existence today. Applications such as SAP are easily integrated via LPR meaning that you can account for SAP print jobs to his user account and also ensure that those print jobs are only released to the printer when requested by the user.
Interactive Printing (FollowMe Printing)
FollowMe’s Interactive printing is the use of a hardware release device at the copier/printer or MFP. When printing via FollowMe’s interactive mode it requires the user to identify himself or herself at the printer to release their print job(s).
Interactive printing provides accountability and security for all print jobs that flow through the system. However interactive printing can be used in conjunction with Non-Interactive printing to provide a more flexible solution.
Non-Interactive Printing (Account for Printing)
The Non-Interactive mode within FollowMe provides an accounting only printing system that can be used to account for all printing that flows through the system on a per user basis and printer basis.
Non-Interactive printing can be used in conjunction with the Interactive mode if required. Non-Interactive printing can be enabled on a per printer basis.
Cost Savings
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Reduced cost of ownership
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Reduced device support costs
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Reduced IT staff support overhead
- Possible to standardise on single device manufacturer throughout organisation
- Users not reliant on single device
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Reduced running costs (consumables)
Example of Cost Savings
Savings based on 10 FollowMe units with Enterprise server software, 350 users and an annual throughput of 3 million pages.
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Total annual saving of UKŁ22,500 (US$40,050)
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Equivalent to an annual saving of UKŁ2,250 (US$4,005) per unit
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Equivalent to an annual saving of UKŁ64 (US$113.92) per user
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Equivalent to an annual saving of UKŁ0.0075 (US$0.0134) per page
NOTE: US$ savings are based on an exchange rate of 1.78 US$ to the UKŁ.
For Organizations that manage their own printer assets or companies that provide a managed print solution
as a service alike in an environment that has multi-vendor printer makes and models, FollowMe is the all-in-one
tool that can achieve the highest requirements in all key areas of hardcopy accounting, printer asset management,
rule enforcement, analysis and reporting.
Where in the past each manufacturer provided their own in-coherent software systems to achive parts of that
solution, FollowMe can achieve excellent features, performance and print security with maximum future flexibility for almost any
MFP, printer or copier make or model.
FollowMe has the highest ROI of any product in its market and typically pays for itself within the first year!
FollowMe plays an important role in your revenue assurance program.
Companies that are adopting a comprehensive revenue assurance program can achieve measurable results in the short-term and significantly improve financial performance for years to come.
System Overview
FollowMe works on a Client-Server infrastructure with a central server or servers handling all print jobs in a similar way to a print server.
FollowMe is an all-in-one Output Cost Management system consisting of three core components:
the Client, which is the user's workstation,
the Q-Server, which is the print server, which stores all print jobs uploaded from the client, and manages all communications and
the ID-Reader hardware (print release station), located on the printer allowing a variety of different recognition techniques to be sent to the server for authentication.
Three core components:
Printing to the Q-Server:
The user would use his normal ‘PRINT’ button and then print job is uploaded to the Q-Server.
Print to any printer:
The user must first authenticate at the FollowMe Hardware using any of the supported indentification technologies. Once authenticated the FollowMe Q-Server will release any pending print jobs. If the device (copier/printer/MFP) is copy patrol enabled the FollowMe Q-Server will signal the hardware to enable the copy patrol functionality.
